Giffard started life in the Loire Valley in 1885 when pharmacist Émile Giffard began experimenting with mint during a particularly brutal summer heatwave. The result was Menthe-Pastille, a bright white mint liqueur that became so popular he more or less abandoned pharmacy work and turned himself into a full-time liqueur producer instead. Honestly, fair enough.

Nearly 140 years later, Giffard has become one of the most respected names in cocktail ingredients anywhere in the world. Bartenders love the stuff because the flavours actually taste like the ingredients on the label. Which sounds like the bare minimum, but after enough aggressively synthetic peach liqueurs you start appreciating companies that remember fruit is meant to taste of something.

The range is enormous. Cassis, apricot, elderflower, rhubarb, violette, triple sec, banana, hazelnut, ginger, coffee, the list gets slightly alarming after a while. But the thread running through all of it is balance. The liqueurs are sweet obviously, that’s part of the deal, but there’s usually acidity, bitterness or freshness underneath keeping things from becoming liquid dessert syrup.

Giffard also sits in that nice middle ground where serious cocktail bars respect it but it never feels intimidating. You can absolutely use the bottles for elaborate modern cocktails involving tweezers and clarified milk if you want. You can also pour crème de pêche into sparkling wine on a Tuesday evening and have a lovely time.

There’s something reassuringly French about the whole company too. Family-owned, quietly obsessive and more interested in flavour than marketing theatrics. They’ve spent generations refining recipes while the rest of the drinks industry periodically loses its mind chasing trends.